“Think we gonna get us some breakfast soon. We almost back to Frontwater. Remember that diner we stopped in yesterday, or the day before, when I first got you? That ain’t too far.” Hogg chuckled. “I’m about ready to see what they’d do if we came in there again. Get ourselves a few handfuls of scrambled eggs and syrup and pancakes!” Ten seconds later, he glanced at me. “Boy, you know I’d been thinking about getting’ out to take that shit at least an hour—while you was curled up against me, asleep. Even stopped the truck once and got out … you was just snorin’ away. So I said, fuck it, I might as well wait. ’Cause I knew what you was gonna do.” He looked at the road, looked at me, looked at the road. “Just like Piper, man. Like you was my own kid brother. So I figured I’d get back in and go on till you got to stirrin’. I mean I ain’t worth a fuck if I can’t hold my gut for another half hour or so, right? And you were pretty sleepy.”

On runneled gold, with a tug either side and piled between with refuse, a Crawhole scow moved on the bay’s far waters.